Marker Text WOODLAND CEMETERY Howard Daniels, who lived from 1815-1863, was a noted architect and landscape gardener. Over the course of his life, he designed six Ohio and New York cemeteries, including Woodland that began in 1852 when he laid out 20 of its 60 acres into fashionable “rural cemetery” style. Later acreage in the cemetery adapted his curvilinear design. “As beautifully prepared for a burial place as fancy and taste could desire,” Woodland was dedicated on June 14, 1853, and became Cleveland’s primary cemetery. An ornate gatehouse, chapel, and fountains came later. Generations of Clevelanders, pioneering and prominent, as well as veterans onward from the War of 1812, are buried here. For more than a century, Woodland, in its original and newly platted sections, has embraced people from every race, the rich and poor, natives and immigrants, and the famous and obscure. It has truly become a community cemetery. Woodland Cemetery’s first burial, which occurred on June 23, 1853, was 15-month old Fanny Langshaw. Two Ohio governors, Reuben Wood (1850-1853) and John Brough (1864-1865), are here as are several nineteenth-century Cleveland mayors. Other notables include John P. Green and William H. Clifford, African American legislators; Joseph Briggs, developer of free city mail delivery and national postal superintendent; Levi Johnson, ship and house builder; J. Milton Dyer, Cleveland City Hall’s architect; and Eliza Bryant, founder of the Cleveland Home of Aged Colored People. Groups that have plots for their members here are the Old Stone, Trinity, and Woodland Avenue Presbyterian congregations; Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, and Cleveland Firemen’s Relief Association. Woodland Cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 and was designated a Cleveland Landmark in 2008. WOODLAND CEMETERY FOUNDATION OF CLEVELAND, OHIO OHIO HISTORICAL SOCIETY e These People and Organizations Have Made the Marker Possible Adams Charitable Foundation Neil Evans Genevieve Miller Anonymous Alan Fodor Linda Murr Molly Anthony Vincent Francioli Diane Oster Barbara Austin John Franklin, Jr. Richard “Ted” Prasse Bob Back Friends of Monroe Herman Rueger Steve Bowley Street Cemetery Kathryn Rybak Virginia Brunning Gerald Fuerst Harry Squire Merry Cerwin Diane Gravelee Mariam Standen Janice Cigler Joan Green Wade Toth City of Cleveland Philip & Ann Handerson Gilbert M. True Elizabeth Corethers Mary Jo Howard VFW Strongsville Post 3345 Murray Davidson Linda Jeffries VIP Restoration Early Settlers’ Association Betty Johnson William Penn Association Ilene Elliot Bill & Diane Luther Branch 14 Janet Esmond Bette McIntosh Mary Yourich In the Beginning Cleveland’s Mayors Eliza Simmons Bryant (1827-1907), born into slavery in North Carolina, came with her On Tuesday, June 14, 1853, the parade of carriages left the leased quarters Clevelanders George Senter (1827-70), 1859-60, 1864-65, Section 11, Lot 1 mother, Mary “Polly” Simmons, and her brother to Cleveland in 1848 after being freed by called “City Hall” to travel beyond the city’s eastern boundary to dedicate “the new and John H. Farley (1846-1922), 1883-84, 1899-1900, Section 26, Lots 7 & 8 her father, the slave owner. Apparently the family had been provided with funds to purchase a house. There seem to be few specifics about the family’s early life in Cleveland beautiful City Cemetery…situated on Kinsman street.” Twenty acres of the entire sixty were George Gardner (1834-1911), 1885-86, 1889-90, Section 4, Lot 3 termed “improved..neatly divided and handsomely ornamented..” Sermons, speeches, although it is known that before, during, and after the Civil War the family assisted Robert Blee (1839-98), 1893-95, Section 2, Lot 13. music, and poetry honored the fashionable “rural cemetery,” the successor to the older City emancipated slaves who came to Cleveland. At some point Eliza married Needham Cemetery we now call Erie Street Cemetery. Bryant. By 1893 Eliza Bryant at age sixty-six was sufficiently concerned about the John P. Green (1845-1940), born of free parents in North Carolina, came to Cleveland with condition of Cleveland’s elderly black women to work toward forming the Cleveland Home e his widowed mother in 1857. Becoming a lawyer (1870), Green practiced in South Carolina of Aged Colored People (1896) which received church and community assistance from, and Cleveland where he was the city’s first elected African-American (1873-82) as justice of among others, John D. Rockefeller. Today, Eliza Bryant’s work is still carried on in Eliza the peace. Active in Republican politics, he was a state representative – where his bill made Bryant Village, one of Cuyahoga County’s oldest nursing facilities. Section 40, Lots 39 & 40 Marker Biographies in Brief Labor Day a state holiday (1890) before it was a national holiday – a state senator (1892), and Howard Daniels (1815-63), noted for cemeteries in Cincinnati (Spring Grove, 1846), Xenia an official in the U.S. Post Office(1897-1905). He wrote and practiced law until his death. e (Woodland, 1848), and Columbus (Green Lawn, 1849), was the architect for what is now Section 29, Lot 74. called the Old Montgomery County Court House (1845) on Dayton’s Courthouse Square. A prolific proponent of landscaping, Daniels called the rural cemetery a “peculiarly Organizations Owning Cemetery Lots William H. Clifford (1862-1929), a Cleveland native, was an African-American public th In the 19 century churches, lodges, professions, and benevolent organizations often American institution” whose presence in large cities paved the way for “the next great step in servant and Republican politician of prominence at local, state, and national levels of formed cemeteries specifically for their members or purchased lots in existing cemeteries to rural progress…providing public Gardens and Parks for the people.” He died while working government. Elected twice to the Ohio House (1894-95 & 1898-99), he served in the War provide a secure place, not the potter’s field, for their dead. The marker identifies five such in Baltimore; he is buried in Green Lawn Cemetery. Dept. (1908-1929) in Washington, D.C. Section 43, Lot 174 organizations with lots in Woodland Cemetery. Joseph Ireland (1843-1905), a New York born and trained architect, practiced in Cleveland Joseph W. Briggs (1813-72), out of necessity during the Civil War, invented a government Grand United Order of Odd Fellows (GUOOF), Ohio Lodge 1188 – The Colored from 1865-85. Twenty-seven of his more important works are listed on the Cleveland service we now take for granted – free mail delivery by street address. Few can imagine how branch of the American Independent Order of Odd Fellows purchased a lot in 1862 in Landmarks Commission’s website. Unmentioned are his numerous public projects, such as arduous it was to devise an orderly system to replace getting one’s mail at the post office. Yet which over thirty men and women are buried. Section 14, Lots 50 & 51 Euclid Twp. Cemetery’s vault and Woodland Cemetery’s elaborate gatehouse (1870), Cleveland postal clerk Briggs did that; first, by convincing the local postmaster that the dismantled in 1996 but awaiting reconstruction. service could be profitable, then by serving as the first letter carrier. Briggs and the U.S. Postmaster convinced Congress and Lincoln to employ letter carriers (1863). Until his death, Trinity Church Home “Poor & Friendless” by Mrs. M. Bradford – The record indicates e Briggs worked tirelessly to implement free delivery nationally. Section 38, Lot 13 six lots were purchased in 1875. Section 53, Lots 16-21 Fanny Langshaw (1851-53), one of the twins born to Stephen and Hannah Bates Langshaw Levi Johnson (1786-1871), a young man from upstate New York where he mastered the First Presbyterian (Old Stone) Church – The record indicates at least three lots were who had come to Cleveland from Lincolnshire in England, died before her second birthday. carpenter’s trade, put his building skills to immediate use when he came to Cleveland in the purchased in 1882. Section 50, Lots 63, 65,66, 69 On June 23, 1853, hers was the first burial in Woodland Cemetery. Section 19, Lot 23 early 1800’s. For the lake trade he built sail and steam vessels; on land he built residences, commercial buildings, piers, and lighthouses. Of his nine buildings on the Cleveland Woodland Avenue Presbyterian Church – The church purchased a small area in 1892. Reuben Wood (1792-1864) was Ohio’s 16th governor (1850-53) at a pivotal point in Ohio’s Landmarks Commission list, only one stands today. As a respected citizen of means, Johnson Section 72, Lot 2 E ½ history, the adoption of the 1851 Constitution that governs the state today. Coming to held many public and private posts. Section 21, Lot 1 Cleveland in 1819 with his wife and daughter, he became prominent in local and state Cleveland Firemen’s Relief Association – Donated by the City of Cleveland to the government as a representative and supreme court judge. He narrowly missed being the 1852 J. Milton Dyer (1870-1957) came as a youth from Pennsylvania to Cleveland where he Firemen’s Relief Association in 1854. Section 14, Lots 23-25 Democratic Party’s nominee for President. Section 21, Lot 44 received training at Central High School and Case Institute of Technology. Returning from European study, Dyer set up an architectural office from which came numerous designs, e sixty-three being on the Cleveland Landmarks Commission’s list, and came several young John Brough (1811-65) came to Cleveland in 1861 after a varied life throughout Ohio as a th journalist, lawyer, railroad president, state representative, and state auditor. After the Panic architects who formed their own local firms. His work from the first two decades of the 20 of 1837, in this last office, he brought fiscal stability to a bankrupt state.